The current Craft Hope project is to sew pillowcases for ConKerr Cancer. “ConKerr Cancer was established two years ago to put smiles upon the faces of terminally ill children in the hospital. They provide bright and cheery handmade pillowcases for these children. They have succeeded in delivering 225,000 pillowcases up to this date. They have a goal of providing a beautiful pillowcase for every seriously ill child in North America by 2012.”

When I was 12, I was diagnosed with ITP, which is a blood clotting disorder. The only doctors in town who could treat it happened to also be pediatric oncologists (at that time, there were no pediatric hematologists who weren’t also oncologists). So, any time I was admitted to the hospital, I would be placed with the pediatric oncology patients, most of whom were much younger than I.

For a number of years, I couldn’t even really talk about cancer, cancer in children, etc. - it was just too much to deal with, when I could place actual faces and personalities with the nameless, faceless stories and statistics. I still chuckle whenever I think of one of my first roommates in the hospital. She loved movies and hoped her hair would grow back long and straight and blonde. (She was Black.) The nurses bought her a baseball hat with a long blonde ponytail coming out the back.

Anyway, this project was right up my alley. Pillowcases are easy enough to fit into my cramped fall schedule, and kids with cancer are near and dear to my heart.

This is only six pillowcases, but it’s pretty much depleted my current inventory of cottons. I don’t have very many cotton pieces that are large enough for a pillowcase! But I used some of my favorite prints - the Pez prints, John Deere, and Bugs Bunny. I hope the kids like them.

I’ve contacted the Iowa coordinator for ConKerr Cancer and will be mailing these off as soon as she lets me know where to send them!